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Dancing_P [ 5.0 ]
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Misery is the new trend in Hollywood - just ask Danny Boyle and Lee Daniels, a couple of generally-overwrought genre directors (no matter what Daniels may wax poetic about in interviews, there is no fucking way Shadowboxer is an art film) who moved into misery with great results (in terms of accolades, anyway). Much like Slumdog Millionaire, Precious takes inhuman, unendurable hardships and applies a thick coat of glossy Hollywoodism (the movie calls it hope, but I digress) to glean tears from even the most unsuspecting viewer. Call me cynical but when a movie centers around a massively overweight, poor, black, illiterate, pregnant, HIV-positive teenager whose babies (one of which has Down's Syndrome) are born from incest (from her own father, no less), you're working less in gritty realism and more in a sort of melodramatic version of the Aristocrats. Much has been made about the film's supposed harsh realism - while I don't doubt that someone as troubled as Precious could exist, the film doesn't do itself any favors by piling on the misery.
Precious Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is a 16-year-old high school student who lives with her tyrannical, couch potato mother (Mo'Nique) in Harlem. Having already given birth to one baby (with Down's Syndrome), Precious is pregnant with her second child, the product of rape by her absentee father. In other words, her life really really sucks. She gets kicked out of school for being pregnant but, thanks to a tough-but-kind principal, she is placed in an alternative school where she is taken under the tutelage of Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), a kindhearted teacher who sees potential in Precious.
Somewhere between harrowing familial drama and inspiring teacher hokum, Precious would greatly benefit from the kind of raw, unvarnished filmmaking one finds in the lower tiers of the indie world. One look at Daniels' slick cinematography and stylized direction clearly indicates that, despite best intentions, this is Hollywood product through-and-through. His intentions are (probably) good but he handles everything with such thick brush strokes, it serves the already-teetering-on-the-brink-of-parody concept in no shape or form. The best thing that I can say about it is that Precious is not bad enough or histrionic enough that it's easy to laugh at it. It's not nearly as affecting as it thinks it is but it doesn't necessarily cross the line into laughable melodrama either. The performances have a lot to do with it; while they tend to veer into over-the-top territory, the cast manages to ground the characters in the otherwise slippery film. Much has been said about Mo'Nique's award-winning performance - it is good within the measure that it is coming from a standup comedian that has thus far given us shit performances. In fact, a lot of Precious' praise seems to come from how unexpected it is - AIDS, illiteracy and all.
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Jeff_Wilder [ 10.0 ]
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I try not to get into the debate between what constitutes a movie and a film. To me both are valid forms. Although I read the book "Film Snob's Dictionary" I do not consider myself a snob. I love indie films and I find many of them to be superior to Hollywood blockbusters like the utterly ridiculous Transformers. But I can also enjoy a good popcorn movie as much as the next person.
Well I am here to tell you that Precious is not a movie. No, Precious is a film. Not only that, it is the film of the year. Although 2009 still has a couple weeks left to go, I do not see anything dislodging it from that position.
Good films will keep us entertained and may give us cause to think about them a few weeks after we see them. Great films will entertain us and invade us with emotions. Masterpieces will entertain us and leave you walking out of the theater possibly feeling completely different than you did when you went in. Precious does all three.
When I first heard about this movie, my initial thought was that it would be like "Slumdog Millionaire", a hard and gritty yet uplifting story. In tone it is. However, if "Slumdog" was the cinematic equivalent of a slap to the face, Precious is a punch to the gut.
Newcomer Gabby Sidibe plays Clareece Precious Jones an extremely overweight 16-year old junior high girl in 1987 Harlem. Precious is smart at math. But not particularly good at anything else. She's functionally illiterate and pregnant with her second child. The father of this child and her first one (a girl)? Her own father. Her mother Mary (Mo'Nique) makes Joan Crawford in "Mommy Dearest" look like the most loving mother in the world. She heaps loads of abuse both physical and psychological on Precious and stood by while her father molested her.
When the school principal discovers Precious is pregnant, she suggests that she might be better off at an alternative school. Precious follows the suggestion despite Mary's attempts to stop her and to get her on welfare. In class with Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) the barriers between Precious and the rest of the world begin to break down. Eventually the baby is born and this sets the stage for Precious to finally escape from the hell that is her home life. But there are a few more twists and turns before the story ends.
One particular movie that I hate is the empty tear-jerker. This is a movie that tries to force the audience to tears so much that the audience knows that they are expected to cry. There are movies that can legitimately move you to tears however. Precious is one of those.
Part of that can be attributed to the performances. Sidibe plays Precious as a real teenage girl and shows her reacting as someone would if they really were in such a horrific situation. As such, you forget that you are watching someone act. It's very rare that one sees such a debut performance; the last one that I saw was by Jennifer Hudson.
Mo'Nique does equally well with her equally challenging role as Mary. This woman is a truly monstrous person and Mo'Nique plays it just right. She doesn't let her become a caricature. Her and director Lee Daniels work together to show Mary as a person who's truly evil. But wasn't born evil. They don't turn her totally around in the final reel nor do they let her off on an easy excuse. They manage to make a despicable person three-dimensional. There are also good supporting performances from Patton, Mariah Carey (no kidding) as a social worker and Lenny Kravitz as a male nurse.
Daniels' direction keeps the story moving along. There are some flashbacks and fantasy sequences that do not feel out of place; instead they add to the story. For instance, Daniels shows the rape of Precious by her father as a flashback. During the flashback he cuts away to one of Precious' fantasies. This shows Precious trying to tune out the hell she's going through. Then we come back to the actual scene and then back to the gritty present. This makes that part of the story even more effective. Also good is the use of music, particularly the use of a gospel number in a scene after Precious receives some horrible news.
I'm really grateful for films like Precious. In an era where ridiculous product of the Twilight/Transformers variety floods the multiplexes, Precious reminds us that it is possible to make a real film with people we truly care about. Harrowing yet uplifting, Precious is the year’s cinematic masterpiece. Go see it.
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DokBrowne [ 7.0 ]
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[sorry, I'm not going to add that pretentious "Based on" subtitle since it thankfully doesn't even appear in the credits that way]
This hits you on a gut emotional level. That's about the best thing I can say. There are tears of shock, sorrow, relief, and happiness to be shed (not altogether in that order). High props to Gabourey Sidibe and, reluctantly, Mo'Nique (because before this movie ever came around, I thought she was one of the most obnoxious living celebrities, on screen and off, and despite her immersive performance, I still kinda feel the same way). The movie is good at having the viewer share in Precious's experiences first-hand, feeling her pain, frustration, yearning, and love, although it probably required little effort considering how toweringly fucked-up her life is. It's designed to make you gasp for air whenever someone treats her with kindness, so despite how dressed-down the movie seems to be, shining its flashlight of social concern on some pretty dark, ugly corners (Mariah Carey doesn't even wear makeup!!!!!!111), it's a shrewdly manipulative experience. But I guess all movies are one way or another so maybe that's not a legitimate complaint. I'm just saying, I was too aware sometimes of the machinery at work and so it felt a bit false.
Even more questionably, the ending glosses over the story's over-powering fatalism to imply triumph, which does feel good, but is also deceitfully simplistic. There's no happy ending for these people, so it's hard to even buy into an appreciation for small gains or internal victory. I mean, I'm as inspired as anyone by the notion of making the most of our limited time in life, but jesus christ
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.9 |
| No. Ratings | : 4 | |
| No. Reviews | : 3 | |
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